In our today’s Mein MMO, everything revolves around our native language. How important is German to you in your online games?
Virtually, multi-culture has long been a part of everyday life – there are no boundaries on the internet
The world is a village. For jobs, we move across Germany, sometimes spending a year or two abroad. We have overcome the borders of Europe, and we can pay in thousands of kilometers with the same money we use to buy a roll around the corner.
What are the internal German borders? Through the internet, many of us have friends from other federal states: The person from Bremen knows someone from Thuringia, the Saarlander knows someone from Mecklenburg, and even one or another native Bavarian is said to have (actually unthinkable) befriended a Franconian.
We watch series from France and Scandinavia, listen to British music, eat beef from Argentina, and for dessert, a mango from India. Most of our games come from the USA or South Korea.
Give us the game in German, give us German servers
In such a patchwork quilt, the internet often remains our home, with language playing a crucial role. However, when almost everyone has been tortured with school English for years, hardly anyone feels at home in a foreign tongue.
But what used to be taken for granted and demanded by many: Give us the game in German. Give us German servers – that is no longer the case today. Games are often smaller in a fragmented market, unable to afford such localization expenses. It is expected that we speak and understand English to communicate with the games of other nationalities.
We grew up with English, who needs German servers?
And some are quite fine with that. We no longer live in the 90s, they say. We grew up with computer games and English, we need it every day in the office. What nonsense?
The clash of languages sometimes leads to uncomfortable situations. In Guild Wars 2, players from different nations were surprisingly thrown together when a phasing patch hit. Players responded negatively, with ugly racist accusations cropping up again and again. In GW2, one can say: They have brutally torn apart player structures that had grown. But in many games, it can be observed: When someone writes something in the general chat, which is actually open to all, in German, there are often harsh demands to speak in English instead.
If you identify as German in a MOBA like LoL, the reactions usually harken back to a time we only know from school books. Fairly, it must be said: Those who speak French or another language besides English also have to endure a lot.
Provincial German gaming sites and English-speaking streamers who curse in German
But is everything terrible? No, others love to play on international servers, feel more comfortable there than on “stuffy” German servers. They do not want to languish in their own juices, belonging to such a small community. Players from other countries are said to be more open and communicative. Instead of discussing their favorite game on German sites, which have some provincial flavor, they head straight to reddit, listening to what players from around the world have to say in the lingua franca, English.
And the truly adventurous even play on exotic servers in languages they do not understand, using templates or fan patches,to still enjoy a foreign game.
German streamers and YouTubers who strive for international success often drop German altogether. They stream for a larger audience in English. One is almost surprised when one hears a few German words during a rage outburst from a well-known streamer and realizes: They actually come from this area.
Our question this time: How important is German to you in your online games? Do you play games even without a German client when the game is in English? Do you want to play on a German server where everyone understands you, or do you enjoy being with players from other nations? Do you feel comfortable having to speak or write in English? What experiences have you made?
